


Mercy Christmas

by Thelxiope



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Christmas (obviously), F/F, Post-Break Up, Sanvers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelxiope/pseuds/Thelxiope
Summary: Sometimes the worst present can turn into the greatest gift.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 24
Kudos: 88





	Mercy Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This was my initial fic for the Sanvers Winter Holiday Event, but when I checked if my match was okay with angst, it turned out that they preferred something lighter. So, I carved out some Marshmallow fluff instead and you can find that over yonder. If you read both, you'll see how they fit together (although I'd recommend starting here.) 
> 
> Thanks to Smarterinabsentia for being my first reader and my confidence booster. If anyone's interested, there are some moody tunes to accompany this piece: https://spoti.fi/34vwKXk . Thanks again for reading!

Maggie’s hands are cold. She’s been at her desk for a couple hours reviewing files and entering reports and she would be thankful for the downtime, for the quiet the city is keeping, were it not for her want of a distraction. Too good for her own good, she has closed her major cases before her holiday overtime started. _I could really use a good old-fashioned murder right now_ , says the familiar voice in her head. She tosses her pen down next to her laptop and rubs her hands together, gripping and flexing and cracking her knuckles, with maybe a little more vigor than is necessary. She stretches and rolls her shoulders, takes a deep breath and exhales. She thinks about getting up and walking around the station, but instead she leans back in her chair, annoyed by its creaking, and stacks her booted feet on top of each other on the edge of her desk. She wishes the phones would ring.

It’s a few days before the holiday, yet she doesn’t think about it too much, about spending it alone this year. One of the other detectives on shift is playing Christmas music at his desk, quietly, as he works. Maggie listens to the notes from a piano, hears chords cascading like the snow that would never arrive here in National City. There is something unkind in the radio this time of year with its sentimental songs of home and family and lovers coming together. Although the lights are nice, even here, and through the glass partition she can glimpse a few soft white twinklers hanging in the public waiting area. A moment later the assistant watch commander blocks her view, hovering over her workstation.

“What’s up Sergeant?” Maggie asks, lowering her feet and leaning forward.

“Two things. First, something from Gerda’s task force that might be of interest to you. I made a copy.” He drops a thin file on top of her open paperwork. “Second, some mail for you that was left in my office.” He adds a couple of envelopes on top of the file.

“Thanks Meyer. You got anything else happening tonight?”

“Nope. Not so far.”

Maggie nods and reaches for the envelopes as he makes his exit. There is something from professional development and the benefits office and a festive red envelope with a Midvale return address. This she holds for minute, turning it around in her hands and stabbing the sharp corners into her fingertips until they leave little dents; this holiday greeting she will save for home. She turns and stuffs the card from her former would-be mother-in-law into the pocket of her jacket and the rest she pushes off to the side for later. Then she flips open the file.

There isn’t much there, but she reads with increasing concern about a credible threat to a local federal agent believed to be a certain Alex Danvers. She sits up with alarm and looks around at the mostly empty squad room, and then back down at the file. It has been a while since she’s seen Alex. When she does, the hurt of their breakup always feels fresh, a wound that resists being cauterized, open, painful, ever present. But this is more important. Alex might be in danger, and she is, after all, a citizen of National City, whom Maggie has sworn to protect and serve. So at least there is that -- one oath she could follow through on, one promise she could still keep for her ex.

She picks up her phone, opens her contacts, hesitates, and calls Alex. It rings and rings. Before it goes to voicemail Maggie hangs up. And kicks herself for not having left a message; it was possible, of course, that she and her sister had gone home to Midvale for the holidays. She calls again. But again hangs up when she hears Alex’s greeting start on the voicemail. She considers trying to get in contact through the DEO but she has no idea what is going on in the organization these days. She considers summoning Supergirl, but that seems like it could be more trouble than it’s worth. With a sigh she calls Alex a third time, prepared to leave a message, unrehearsed, simple and direct, but after all that her voicemail is full and Maggie takes this as a bad sign.

Opening the center drawer of her desk, she slides her hand in through pens and file tabs and spent shell casings, past the stapler and a broken tape measure, until she feels the sides of a picture frame wedged deep in the drawer, and next to that, a set of keys.

Thirty minutes later and she’s elsewhere, at this apartment block that she has driven by a hundred times, a thousand times, often on purpose, often out of her way. She always wants to come back here. She never wants to come back here. Either way, here she is, entering the building, hoping she doesn’t see any of her former neighbors, and making it to the elevator without incident. Except she didn’t expect to get punched in the face by the scent of her former home, the memories instantly provoked. During the ride she straightens, centers, and by the time the lift chimes on the right floor she is set. Professional and focused, she arrives at Alex’s door.

There’s no answer when she knocks the first time. Or the next. Or when she knocks like a cop with the side of her fist and calls for Alex, although this seems to have shaken something loose because she thinks she hears an echo of a thud and some faint shuffling around inside. She knocks one last time and identifies herself. “NCPD! Danvers, it’s Sawyer. Open up.” Silence ensues. She left her heart in this apartment when she left her engagement ring here, but she took her keys, and Alex hasn’t changed the locks after all this time. Admonishments about proper safety precautions will be postponed. She turns the handle.

And when she does so, she senses a disturbance, an erroneous undertone that makes her hair stand on end. She pulls her gun and stays low against the frame as she swings the door open. It’s dark inside but for the glow from the kitchen appliances, enough to guide her entrance. Through to the kitchen island, she turns to take in the rest of the apartment, clears the balcony and the bathroom and bedroom closet. There’s no one here and no sign that anyone has been there, nothing displaced and nothing unexpected.

She turns on some lights and sits on the foot of the bed, her heart pounding, but temporarily relieved. She takes the time to collect herself and to holster her weapon. As she does she gazes out to the living area, the kitchen. There’s a small fake Christmas tree on the TV shelf next to the fireplace, minimal decorations, some cards on the mantle. It’s all so familiar. And so alienating. And so quiet. Much too quiet. Remembrances fill the void and she weathers another assault by gripping the bed covers in her fists. She starts to feel guilty, like she is the intruder she was hunting, like she’s snooping around and invading Alex’s privacy. Now she knows, with an uncomfortable clarity, that her motive for being there is suspect and she wonders what in the hell she was thinking, why she didn’t text her or contact Kara or J’onn.

Slowly under the weight of her own deceit, she rises up to leave, but there’s that damn noise again, fainter but a definite rustling and scraping. It appears to be coming from a medium sized box wrapped in silver paper under the tree. She approaches it curiously, cautiously, remembering the true reason why she’s there. She runs scenarios through her head: something explosive or chemical would be unlikely to move, but it could be something biologic, animal or alien. She crouches beside the box and turns the card around like it’s evidence she might have to dust for prints: “To Alex, with love, K.”

Frowning, she stands, hands on hips, staring at the shiny rectangle. Surely no one would stick an animal in there like that, would they? Hoping that Alex will forgive her and know that she really had her best interests at heart, or the interests of whatever adorable little space kitten Kara has left as a present, Maggie goes to the kitchen and comes back with a small paring knife and slits open the box.

%\%\%

“What happened?” Alex, out of uniform, slams into the med bay. The doors swing into the walls with a clang and a shudder. Kara and J’onn wince as she pushes past them and two of the DEO clinicians. She looks down at the gruesome parasite that has wrapped itself around Maggie’s chest. It’s smaller than the one that had attacked Kara; these tentacles that encircle her neck and body look younger, greener perhaps, and its blossoms and spikes a deeper blood red. Alex feels sickened looking at it, this vile thing that has gift-wrapped Maggie in a sinister deadly bow.

When she had noticed all the missed calls she worried that something was wrong and tried to reply but got no answer. She had called the precinct too and been told that she had gone out, maybe on a case. She knew, in spite of everything, that Maggie wouldn’t call like that unless it was important. Not being able to reach her made her feel desperate, made the situation, whatever it would turn out to be, feel dire. She asked Kara to check, to find her and make sure she was ok. So Kara did, but she wasn’t.

As Kara explains how she had discovered Maggie at the apartment, enveloped by a Black Mercy, next to the opened present, Alex methodically checks the leads and monitors that display all of Maggie’s vital information. “I brought it here too, the package,” Kara adds. “Sullivan has it down in the lab for you to analyze.”

All the bluster of her entrance has evaporated. She thanks Kara absently while she processes the data from the readouts and checks Maggie’s oxygen levels. When she’s done, she hands the tablet to the nurse. “So everything is the same, like it was for Kara before. Physiologically there is nothing wrong with her, except for the monster attached to her, and her readings indicate she’s actually awake and responsive to stimuli but unconscious at the same time. Do I have that right?”

“That is what we have determined so far,” answered J’onn.

“I also tried to pull it off her, a little,” Kara admitted, “but I think that made it more… squeezy.”

Alex reaches out and takes Maggie’s hand as she looks to the others. “I don’t understand. This thing was meant for me? Why was she there? What was she doing there?” But no one has the answers she wants.

She bends over the hospital bed, leans in beside Maggie’s head and urges her to wake up, repeating her name several times and jostling her but gently. This makes no difference and unsuccessful she stands back up resolute: it doesn’t matter why or how this has happened, she just needs to fix it. “J’onn?”

He nods. Knowing her determination, knowing what she is thinking without even reading her thoughts, he begins, in spite of Kara’s vocal opposition, to give instructions to the med techs on how to prepare the modified VR helmet that Alex wore the last time -- when he had nearly lost them both -- when she had rescued Kara from her Black Mercy induced hallucinations by entering her thoughts and helping her to reject that “perfect fantasy life” that had her trapped inside.

She takes the helmet from J’onn, grateful for his help, and is already climbing up on to the adjoining gurney while Kara continues to protest. “Alex, you can’t. It’s too dangerous. I remember… I know we both remember… what it was like. C’mon, we’ll find some other solution.”

“No way, Kara. She could have been under for hours already. I am not letting her give up any more of her life for me. Please. I’ll be all right,” she catches her sister’s arm. “You go find out who did this.”

She secures the helmet over her head and reclines onto the headrest, her face a mask behind the darkened visor. She tries to suppress her expectations, to avoid making any assumptions about what she’ll encounter. Whether Maggie will be in perfect marital bliss with someone else or sunning herself on Themyscira among a throng of gorgeous Amazons, she would face it, and she would find some way to bring Maggie back.

She nods in J’onn’s direction. “I’m ready.”

%\%\%

The first thing that Alex sees is the sky above her. It is not Mediterranean. It is wide and high and full of snowflakes lightly drifting. She is standing on the edge of a neighborhood at the end of dead-end street looking out over a broad field covered in white, trees still in the distance. The next thing that she notices is the cold, creeping over the toes of her boots and up the sleeves of her coat, her breath hovers in the air that fills her lungs like peppermint. She turns to inspect the oversized black vehicle she’s standing next to. It looks like it’s DEO issued, but it’s a rental with Nebraska plates. The hood is warm and she can hear the engine ticking as it cools. There are other cars in the drive of this two-story house, yellow with white shutters. The sun is low and there are lights on inside, so she walks around to the front door, noting the opposing snow forts and lopsided snowmen in the yard. She knocks powder off her boots on the top step while examining the elaborate wreath on display and rings the bell. The door opens and her heart leaps into her throat.

“Alex, why are you ringing the bell?” Oscar Rodas is laughing as he welcomes her inside with a warm hand on her shoulder. “Give me your coat. They’re waiting in the kitchen.” He takes a shopping bag from her hand so she can pull off her gloves and parka. She thanks him and trades him the coat for the bag then walks slowly through the living room. It’s an assault on her senses, but a place she longs to linger. The fire in the fireplace snaps and hisses. Christmas music is playing low. There are photos on the mantle and hanging on the wall, some displaying familiar faces, including her own. A tree sparkles in the corner of the room. The whole house is filled with the scents of pine and wood smoke and cooking and sweet cinnamon and something else, something that makes Alex’s eyes water, cutting through all of it, inescapable, undeniable, unforgettable, the scent and sense of Maggie.

A man in a brown leather wingback chair looks up at her as she passes. “Hey, Alex.”

“Hey,” she swallows thickly, “Winn.”

He smiles and returns to the gadget he’s tinkering with.

She passes the staircase on her left, a garland wound around the bannister, and makes her way to the rear of the house and stops in the doorway to the kitchen. A wind swirls the snow outside, rattling the window above the sink. There are two women in the corner, talking and laughing and bickering over the dishes they are preparing. They too smile when they see her, smiles that are immediately familiar to Alex and she recognizes them without ever having met them before. Maggie’s aunt. Maggie’s mother. As they move to carry place settings and glasses out to the dining room, a third woman enters, her arms outstretched.

“Oh! Sweetheart, thank goodness you’re back. I can’t believe you found a place that was still open. You didn’t call Kara did you?”

“Mom?”

“Yes dear? Here give me that.” She untangles the bag from where Alex had twined the handles tight around her fingers. “It’s about time for dinner.” Eliza glances at Alex, or maybe behind her, and grins at something above Alex’s head, before she too exits to the dining room.

She looks up, vaguely noting that there’s mistletoe pinned there, and sighs, overwhelmed. It’s too much; it’s-- Alex startles as two arms slide around her waist, strong enough to counter her reflex, and feels the press and warmth of a body against her back, breath and lips and a hum against the side of her neck.

“Hi Babe,” Maggie says softly. “I missed you.”

Alex covers Maggie’s arms with her own and laces their fingers together unconsciously like it’s the most natural thing in the world. A small gasp escapes her when their wedding bands click against each other, the picture she has stepped into becoming even clearer by the minute. She freezes there. A spray of sleet and snow patters against the kitchen window.

“Hey, you’re shaking. You still cold, California girl?” Maggie loosens her hold on Alex and turns her around. She pulls the damp hat off Alex’s head, tosses it on a corner shelf, and pushes her long fingers under her hair, lightly scratching and shaking out her hat head. Alex barely has time to register that her hair tumbles over her shoulders before Maggie pulls her down to meet her lips.

She knows she shouldn’t return Maggie’s kiss, but she does. She shouldn’t dip her knees and push her whole body against hers, shouldn’t let her hands slide over Maggie’s neck and press her back and grasp her hips, but she does. For this moment, and another, and just one more, she lets herself melt and merge and absorb the love and happiness that radiates from every pore of Maggie’s being. Because she knows she’s about to take it all away. Again.

She pulls away, keeping her eyes squeezed shut, and tries to catch her breath. She feels Maggie tip up on her toes and pepper light kisses over her eyes and cheeks before she again whispers into her ear, “I guess you missed me too? Or are you trying to warm us both up?”

As Maggie chuckles, Alex opens her eyes and looks closely for the first time in a long time at her face, her dimples on display. She sees a few delicate crinkles around her eyes and her hair, shorter, streaked ever so slightly with gray. They are older than now. The realization that Maggie is living in the future, some false future together, cracks Alex wide open.

Through her heartbreak, she finds her voice. “Maggie, listen. We have to talk…”

“Ok, you two,” Eliza says returning to the kitchen, “your mistletoe time is up for now. We’re ready to eat.”

The others come back and start collecting serving dishes and Winn pokes his head in to see if he can help. Oscar comes around the corner too and crosses over to the window. He flips on the light outside on the porch. It’s almost dark out now and it reflects only a swirling curtain of white on white. “Really starting to kick up out there,” he says peering out.

Eliza squeezes past Alex and Maggie, propelling them both towards the dining room, then calls out from the living room, “Girls! Come down for dinner!”

Before Alex can form the question, she hears the thudding of footsteps running above them, then a galloping down the stairs. She follows her mother and Maggie into the next room then stops dead in her tracks as two little girls descend. The older one, about six years old, stops on the third to last step and jumps to the floor. Her hair is dark and wavy, a bit of a mess, and she has her mother’s dimples. The younger one, about four, also stops on the third to last step and is about to jump, but Maggie gets there first and scoops her up, as Alex stands motionless.

“You know she’s going to copy you, Jamie! You have to watch out for your sister.” Maggie scolds but doesn’t stop smiling and nods at Alex, “She gets that jumping off of stuff from you,” before adding, “And what are you guys wearing? Are those our sweaters?”

Together they watch as the older girl bubbles over with laughter, oblivious to her sister’s peril, and models her outfit. She has the sleeves of an ugly Christmas sweater rolled up, little leggings sticking out from underneath the hem, and blue cowboy boots on. The matching reindeer sweater her sister is wearing drags behind her like a gown.

There’s a crash outside then that they can hear all the way through to the living room. Maggie places the younger girl in Alex’s arms and goes to see what it was. She can overhear Maggie and her father talking, deciding who is going to go out and check. She turns back to the kitchen in time to witness Captain Sawyer, overstepping her jurisdiction, pull rank on Sheriff Rodas then pull on her jacket and go out the door.

Alex stares at the girl in her arms. She has Maggie’s dark eyes, but her own fine features. It’s a wonder, how this could have happened, and she doesn’t think she could break any more than she has already, until the little girl returns her curious gaze with tiny furrow in her brow and says, “Hi, Mommy.”

“Hi, my baby,” she whispers back.

She leans against the doorframe. Jamie, looking serious now, stands beside her and reaches up for her hand, concern written all over her face. “Is Mama going to be Ok?”

“What?” Alex asks looking down at her, brought back to reality that isn’t reality. “Yes, Honey, yes. Don’t worry. Look,” she nods to the door, “here she comes.”

Maggie trundles back in, windblown, snow-covered. She explains to Oscar that his bins blew over but she secured them behind the garage. “I don’t know how it got so dark and so stormy so quickly out there. It was pretty peaceful out there just a half hour ago.” As the words leave her mouth, she looks over at Alex.

Alex can see what she’s seeing: her wife holding the kids she didn’t know she wanted, her family intact and all together. She sees Maggie recognize the look on her face, the anguish she can’t mask, the apology that starts to form on her lips.

“No. Stop.” She holds her hand out at Alex to silence her. She gathers the girls and ushers them over to their grandparents, and cheerfully tells everyone to go sit and start with dinner. “We’ll be there in a minute.” She takes Alex’s hand and pulls her out to the mudroom behind the kitchen. “What aren’t you telling me? What’s wrong? What happened while you were out?”

Alex can feel the storm coming, the cold in her bones. This house won’t protect them. “It’s not that Maggie. It’s not a thing. It’s… it’s everything. Everything here. It isn’t real. None of this is real.” It takes an effort to ignore the small parkas hanging next to her shoulder and sparkle snow boots on the mat beneath.

“What are you talking about?” She drops her hands from Alex and crosses her arms.

“This Christmas, this visit, your family, _our family_ … us. It’s an illusion. It’s the Black Mercy. Do you remember? I told you how it had Kara once, how we had to save her. This is all a dream. You have to reject it. You have to break it. You can’t stay here. If you stay here, you’ll die. The real you, the you that’s in the med bay with this… this parasite attached. Please, please, you have to listen to me!”

As Alex talks herself breathless, Maggie is shaking her head, her jaw clenching. The wind outside is howling louder and the back door begins to shake, ice pelts the windows so hard they might crack. By now they’re both shivering. “I can’t believe you,” Maggie says. “I won’t believe you.”

Alex grabs her by the arms, and feels her trembling beneath her hands. “You already believe me. You already know.” She hates herself for what she is going to say next. “Your dad isn’t proud of you and your mother abandoned you. Your aunt isn’t alive. Eliza’s not in your life any more. We aren’t married. We never got married. You never wanted kids.”

%\%\%

She is dreaming. Someone is calling her name. She feels a weight on her chest. It feels like fear at first, crushing and suffocating, but then by turns reassuring, like waking under the body of a lover, like an embrace. And when she startles awake Maggie reaches reflexively across the bed for Alex, but the sheets are empty. She exhales the cobwebs of her dreams away and stretches her body out under the covers, relaxing into the slide and flush of the sheets against her bare skin. She vaguely remembers Alex saying something about getting the girls up from their nap and seeing if her mother needed help in the kitchen, and then being left with a light kiss to her forehead before dozing back off to sleep. She checks the clock to find it hasn’t really been all that long. After a spending the late morning and midday playing outside in the snow they had come in for snacks and warm beverages and hot showers. Alex took the girls and went first then put them down for naps --although they protested vehemently, they were both asleep in minutes-- while Maggie took her turn and Alex met her, arms extended, with a smirk and a giant fuzzy towel. Wrapping her up and drying her off and practically carrying her in to the bedroom, where they made love quickly, discreetly, and so very quietly that the challenge of doing so added to the intensity of their stolen moment.

She gets up and dressed, and pulls on her shoes. Down the hall she pokes her head into her old bedroom and sees that Jamie and L.J. are awake and playing. She wonders if they will ever tire of acting out the same stories, wonders how many times action figure Supergirl will rescue the Duplo townsfolk.

Downstairs Winn has found some old handheld game; he’s seeing if he can make it work again thinking the kids would like it, but probably it’s really for himself. She floats through the house: her dad is tending the fireplace and fussing with the music, mom is setting the table, Eliza and her aunt are cooking in the kitchen. There’s only one piece of this perfect puzzle missing and her mother lets her know that they’ve sent Alex off on an errand. She looks out the front window in anticipation of her return. The sky is and pink and ripe; it’s going to start snowing again any second.

She heads down to the basement and double checks that everything is in order for Santa’s visit later tonight. While she is checking the cache of gifts in the closet she finds a short stack of archival boxes into which her parents have accumulated clippings from the Tribune about some of her police work and a variety of scrapbook items dating back to her school days. She’ll bring some of the albums up later to show the girls, maybe remind them that Supergirl isn’t the only hero in the family.

When she gets back upstairs Alex has returned. She shushes and winks at Eliza as she creeps up behind her wife in the doorway. The cold and smell of winter lingers on her skin from being outside. She wraps her up in her arms and flushes with the memory their earlier afternoon rendezvous.

Alex seems oddly quiet, but it’s time for dinner and everyone’s gathering. There’s a bit of commotion, then a crash outside. Oscar is pulling on his coat but Maggie intercepts him and they go back and forth. He’s as vital and capable as ever, but as a guest now in his home, she can take a turn helping out.

In the backyard it’s windy, and the snow is gusting, hard and stinging like nettles made of ice. This is not the weather that was predicted. She puts the toppled cans away and does a quick perimeter check around the sides of the house. Darkness seems to be enveloping the neighborhood and closing in on them as if there is a blizzard coming. She shivers violently and runs back inside.

As she reports in, she catches the expression on Alex’s face: she knows something she’s not telling. Maggie suddenly feels the crash of her dream return, the tightness in her chest. She begs Alex with a look not to freak out the family, to just be normal, to get everyone settled, then she drags Alex out to explain.

She knew something was wrong from the time Alex came back. She was too static, her placidness forced, but there was an apprehension behind her eyes that Maggie has seen far too many times in their years together, in all the things they’d been through, all the storms they have weathered together. And now Alex is telling her that none of that even happened, that none of this was really happening. She feels like she is going crazy. She feels like lashing out, in defense, of her family, of her kids, of the fact that Eliza _was_ still part of her life. She shakes off Alex’s hands and reaches inside her jacket and pulls out the red envelope, the unopened card from Midvale, and thrusts it out at Alex. And as she does…

She knows.

It’s a lie.

It is all a lie and Alex is right.

The walls of the house start to shake and she is torn in two between worry for the people inside and knowing that they aren’t real. Her mind feels like it is about to shatter, unable to reconcile the two thoughts at the same time. If only she could… if only… “Alex?”

%\%\%

Alex can’t ever remember seeing Maggie look so stricken. She knew it would be bad of course, but this is like all the pain she’s inflicting is doubling back on itself. Maggie is standing frozen with her arm outstretched clutching an envelope, and breathing as though it was the only thing she could do. Panic floods her face and as her eyes well with tears she looks at Alex from the depths of her tragedy and says her name.

The maelstrom is closing in. She takes the red envelope out of Maggie’s hand and discards it, replacing it with her own hand and pulling her closer. “Oh Mags,” she says, though it only comes out as a breath.

“We could stay here,” Maggie says, assailed as she is by memories of arguments and aborted wedding plans. “Why is one reality better than another… if there is joy here, if there is love _here_? What’s out there for us? Our mistakes? Our pasts and scars?” She couldn’t tell if these were even her own thoughts or did they come from the Black Mercy, whispering to her of regrets and doubt, goading her to stay.

“No. Our futures, our real future. You can’t stay here. You’ll die here. And I won’t leave without you.” But Alex’s answer is interrupted by a resounding crash. The window behind them shatters as ice and glass indistinguishable from each other whirl around them. Alex throws herself over Maggie and drags them down to the floor as the earth shakes beneath.

“I can’t leave them Alex,” Maggie murmurs beneath the din, “I can’t.”

She wraps her arms tighter around Maggie’s back. “I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry. You already have.”

%\%\%

Back at the DEO, Maggie wakes up first. The Black Mercy, vanquished like the one before, is released and wilting into a putrid husk on the floor next to the bed. The med techs flutter nearby but J’onn sends them away. He dims the lights and approaches Maggie, helps her to sit up slowly and removes the oxygen mask and wires before she can get tangled in them.

Over on the next station, Alex too recovers and pulls off her VR helmet, sits up too fast and takes a few beats while the world stops spinning. In that moment, as she gathers herself, about to leap over to Maggie’s gurney, she stops abruptly, because over Maggie’s shoulder she sees the look on J’onn’s face, the near imperceptible shake of his head. So she sits and waits silently in her own space, submissive and grim.

J’onn can sense Maggie’s pain. He doesn’t want to, but it’s so loud he can barely hear his own thoughts. She feels violated. Embarrassed. Ashamed and angry. And on top of all of that: she is grieving. He recognizes it as a shadow of his own loss 300 years ago. Carefully, he sits next to her and offers his hand. She doesn’t look at him. But after a moment or two, she does allow herself to drop her hand into his, and they stay this way for several long minutes.

He breaks the silence. “I have no words that can console you, Maggie, but perhaps I could help you. I could take the memory of this away from you, to ease your burden.”

Before he has finished speaking she is already refusing his offer. “I know it wasn’t real, but it wasn’t a nightmare. Waking up… this is the bad part, but the rest of it, the memory of it, of them… I don’t want to let that go, no matter how awful it feels right now. And,” she looks up and over at the next bed, “I think that right now, I need to talk to Alex.”

He squeezes her hand and rises, and with a solemn nod to both, leaves them alone in the med bay.

Alex stands. “Mag—”

“Can we get out of here?” Maggie interrupts.

“Yeah. Sure, of course. Where did you wan—”

“Home.” She shook her head. “I mean, your place.”

“Uh yeah. I have my bike, or I can get us a car or…?”

“No, let’s walk.”

“If you feel up to it.”

She’s well enough. So they leave the DEO together, walking side by side for several blocks back to Alex’s apartment. Maggie lost in her thoughts. Alex lost in her thoughts of Maggie. The streetlights all over National City have been decorated for the holidays. There are evergreens at every intersection and lights in countless windows lighting their way through the dark. As they arrive at the address, Maggie notices her own car still parked outside, and she slips her hand into Alex’s.

When they get upstairs, the apartment looks the same as before. Alex pours them generous tumblers. “Doctor’s orders,” she deadpans, handing the glass to Maggie. She quirks a slight grimace and sits next to Maggie on the couch. “I’m really thankful you’re here and safe. And thankful for you, you know, coming here and saving me from the Black Mercy.”

“It doesn’t look like I put up much of a fight.” Maggie huffs and empties her glass. She gets up and pours herself another, pausing by the small Christmas tree on her return and switching it on before she sits back down. The lights from the little tree throw a warm glow across her face. “You must have a lot of questions for me.”

“Yeah, I guess.” But Alex doesn’t ask those questions. She takes Maggie’s hand and places a kiss in her palm, and folds their fingers over it so she can hold on to it forever, and she waits, with all the patience in the world, for Maggie to speak. And ultimately, after a deep breath, she does.


End file.
